


Itch

by Zai42



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Anal Sex, Cunnilingus, Do Not Archive, Extremely Dubious Consent, Fingering, Gross, Other, Vaginal Sex, talk of decay, worm sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 06:11:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13805094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zai42/pseuds/Zai42
Summary: They are only dreams and they can't hurt him. At least, this is what he tells himself.





	Itch

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags; consent issues abound. And there is some straight-up worm porn ahead. It's slimy and gross. If that's your thing, you're gonna have a great time.

His back hit the floor with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs, but he retained just enough presence of mind to fling his arms across his face, one pressed firmly over his mouth and the other over his eyes. He didn't _really_ think it would help, but it was better than nothing. Better than lying there trying to scream through a mouthful of writhing wormflesh. Better than seeing her decayed visage as she bore down on him, laughing.

  
She did laugh, but there was no crashing wave of pain as he was eaten alive. Instead she stretched out on top of him, almost catlike, weighing far less than she looked like she should. Her hands curled around his wrists, the skin thin and papery, and her voice was a low, reverberating purr as she murmured in his ear: "No, no, not yet, not for you." He could feel the Hive squirming around his legs, inching higher as she pried his arms from his face with more strength than she seemed she should possess. He screwed his eyes shut and turned his head away from her, clenching his teeth together hard enough to make his jaw ache. She laughed again. "You've nothing to fear from me, Archivist. Look." Her fingers tilted his face towards hers, gently, the way a lover might, and he went as she bade, his eyes fluttering open against his will--

  
Jane Prentiss was a twisted parody of beauty. Like Snow White--with long black hair and moon-pale skin--if the apple had truly killed her and she had been left to rot in her glass coffin, the worms making their home under her flesh, in the hollows of her cheeks and the slope of her neck. She smiled, and her mouth was a nest of wriggling inchworms. "Archivist," she crooned.

  
He let out a shuddering breath.

  
She grasped his jaw in one hand, tilting his head this way and that, staring at him intently enough that he had to tear his eyes away, feeling too open, too exposed. The pulsing weight of the Hive had engulfed him up to his hips, now, heavier than Prentiss herself, squirming under his clothes to reach bare skin. He was very aware of the way Prentiss had arranged herself over his hips, the way her thighs pressed against him through the fabric of her dress. She pressed a thumb to the swell of his lower lip and he snapped his mouth shut. A worm wound its way along her wrist before slipping back beneath the skin. "Archivist," she murmured again, just as a wave of worms finally pressed between his thighs.

  
He cried out--partly horror, partly shock, partly something else he didn't care to examine too closely--and Prentiss surged forward to fit their mouths together in what might have been, under other circumstances, something like a kiss. His hands shot up to dig into her shoulders, to try to push her away, but the spongy flesh there simply _gave,_ and instead he found himself up to his wrists in rotted flesh and writhing insects. Prentiss made a throaty noise against his mouth, her hands cradling his skull, her hips rolling lazily against his, a sea of worms throbbing wetly against him---

* * *

 

Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, awoke safe and alone in his room, gasping and sweating. The clock on his bedside table read 4:09--arguably too early to reasonably get up, but he rolled out of bed regardless, slipping into his kitchen in the pitch-dark. He pulled a mug down out of the cabinet and set it on the counter, staring blankly at it before pressing a hand to his aching eyes.

  
A nightmare, nothing more. Prentiss was nightmarish, of course dreaming of her was...call it a workplace hazard. Especially after the statement of Timothy Hodge. It was understandable that she might cause nightmares.

  
Less understandable was the...tenor of that particular nightmare.

  
Jon snarled, pressing a punishing hand against his cock. No dry spell on _earth_ could explain _that._

  
He left the mug where it was and took a very long, very cold shower instead.

* * *

 

He was exhausted the whole day, snapping at everyone from Martin (as was fairly usual) to Sasha (almost unheard of, and he felt immediately guilty). There was something deeply irritating about a dream bothering him the way it had--especially when he had so many other things that could be bothering him. For God's sake, it wasn't as if his job had a dearth of disturbing subject matter. He could have dreamt of any number of unsavory things coming for him. Mysterious and intimidating coffin deliverymen. A swaying, shrouded creature lurking in the mouth of an alleyway. Something that wore the face of someone he knew, despite being a stranger.

  
But no. It had to be the most disgusting, the most visceral, the most _uniquely unpleasant_ creature he had studied thus far at the Institute.

  
Maybe Tim was right. Maybe he needed to..."loosen up." Certainly normal people with normal human contact didn't have dreams of a squirming, pulsating mass of worms pinning them down and--

  
"Jon?"

  
_"What?"_

  
Martin jumped at the tone of his voice, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. He held up a file in front of his face like a shield, stammering, "I-I-I just wanted to tell you I found that missing persons report you were after?"

  
Jon glared and held out his hand wordlessly. Martin handed him the file and fled the room. Jon mused absently that he should probably feel guilty; Martin had been doing an admirable job of avoiding him that day, and it would certainly be better to encourage such behavior than not, but his nerves were frayed and he had little patience. Martin was used to it, probably. It was fine.

  
It was all going to be fine.

* * *

 

"No--!"

  
The next second, Jon was slammed up against a wall, his breath forced from his lungs in a painful rush, his wrists pinned above his head in one deceptively thin hand. Prentiss _leered_ at him, her eyes dragging up his body like a physical touch. Around his ankles, the Hive pulsed gently, slowly starting to wind their way up his legs. Jon didn't want to look, but he had to--had to glance down to see the silvery mass--almost solid but not quite, not if you looked at it closely enough--sleazing its way up under his clothing, slimy and squirming. He let out a faint, helpless moan.

  
Prentiss dragged her free hand down his chest, tugging his shirt from his waistband to press burning fingertips to the skin of his stomach. She was slow and methodical as she undressed him, until he was left technically still _clothed,_ but exposed and unbuttoned and blushing. He half expected her to release his wrists to touch him, but instead she just _stared,_ her eyes dull and dark, and somehow that was worse.

  
He fully expected to wake up when the worms pressed once more against his bare skin--but he didn't. Instead he found himself gasping and writhing in her grasp, while the Hive pulsated between his thighs, a million wriggling points of contact that congealed into a throbbing, fevered pressure, something slick and hot and demanding. His knees buckled but he did not collapse, held up by the Hive and by Prentiss herself.

  
Still she stared at him, hunger burning in the pits of her eyes, and Jon couldn't tear his gaze away, trying to choke down the embarrassing noises building in his throat even as something in him longed to make them, to see her reaction if he were to start moaning and bucking his hips and--

* * *

 

He awoke so painfully hard he didn't even allow himself to register his dream, just grasped his aching cock and stroked himself off in about thirty seconds, biting his wrist to stifle his cries as he came. Breathing heavily, he lowered his arm, the first twinges of shame starting to worm (ha) their way into his consciousness.

  
"Just a dream," he sound out loud. He repeated it like a mantra as he cleaned himself up and changed his sheets. "Just a dream."

* * *

 

It had been a quiet day--Jon hadn't been snappish, had scarcely said two words to any of his assistants, instead holing up in his office and throwing himself head-first into a stack of statements. They all went onto the laptop with no trouble. He was just flipping open a new file when there was a timid knock on his door.

  
"Yes?" He glanced up just long enough to see Martin poke his head into the office, then returned to his notes on the statement of someone who claimed to have met the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Utter nonsense, of course, in a way that was somehow comforting as much as it was ridiculous.

  
"Uhm, it's getting late," Martin said. "Are you...going to go home...?"

  
Jon drummed his pen against his desk, not looking up to hide the way his brow furrowed. "Not yet."

  
Martin didn't leave, instead hovering in the doorway with a worried expression. "Would you like some tea to hold you over then?" he finally asked. Jon lifted the paper cup of coffee Sasha had brought him, shaking it once without looking up. "Oh," Martin said, sounding surprised. He gave a faint, nervous little laugh. "You're never going to fall asleep, now."

  
_That's the idea,_ Jon thought, but out loud he only said, "I'll manage. Good night, Martin."

* * *

 

"Jon." There was a hand on his shoulder, not shaking, just gripping him gently. He twitched away from it, grunting in annoyance. _"Jonathan."_

  
Jon opened his eyes. He was still at his desk, slumped over in his chair; his neck felt stiff and sore and he winced as he sat up. Elias was standing over him, looking stern and disapproving. "I, uh..." Jon cleared his throat, to try and smooth out the rough edge of sleep in it. "What time is it?"

  
Elias made a show of checking his watch. "5:17 in the morning. Really, Jon, I know you can get wrapped up in your work but this is hardly healthy."

  
"I just--I lost track of time, I--what are you doing here so early?"

  
"I had a few things I needed to get finished."

  
"Down in the Archives?"

  
Elias gave him a hard look. "Martin mentioned last night that you were planning on staying late," he finally said. "I thought it would be wise to check on you. To make sure you weren't doing..." He gestured. "This."

  
Jon glanced away; his neck made an unpleasant popping noise at the motion and he cringed--though it did help with the soreness. "I only meant to stay for a few hours," he grumbled. "Martin worries too much."

  
"And yet here we are," Elias said. "If you intend to stay late again, at least use the cot. Now go home and get some real sleep. You can have the day off--"

  
"No!" Jon sat up straighter. "That--that won't be necessary. I'm _fine,_ Elias."

  
Elias stared at him, and for a dizzying moment Jon was reminded of his dreams, of Prentiss' eyes boring into him like her parasites. Then Elias sighed heavily, looking for all the world as if he would have rolled his eyes, if Elias Bouchard were the type of person to do so. "All right. Fine. At least get home and change, you're a mess."

* * *

 

It hadn't escaped Jon's notice that he didn't dream in the Archives. He spent as many nights as he thought he could get away with sleeping in the tiny room off the main Archive, then slipping home before dawn in the hopes Elias or Martin wouldn't notice. When he did go home at night, he stayed awake as long as he could, distracting himself with books or documentaries that he didn't fully absorb, hoping that he would be too exhausted to dream when he finally did sleep.

  
For a while it even seemed to work.

  
The first day Martin was out, Jon stayed at the Archive. The second day, he went home, intending to finish a book on Gilles de Rais.

  
Later he would recognize he had gotten complacent. He read sat up in bed, rather than in a stiff-backed chair as he had been--and at first he didn't even realize he had fallen asleep. He was still in his bed, the room still softly lit by lamplight, and it took him a moment to even notice the dark figure slowly crawling up his legs.

  
He surged upwards to try and escape, but she was faster and stronger and had him pinned on his stomach with one arm twisted up behind his back before he had even made it off the bed. "Archivist," she purred in his ear. "You sent us such a lovely gift."

  
"Wh-what?" he gasped, trying not to sound too breathless. Already the worms had pressed between his legs, and he had nowhere to go, pinned as he was. The sheets were growing damp with something oil-black and viscous. Prentiss ran her fingertips along his mouth and it took him longer than it should have to snap it shut.

  
"Your assistant," Prentiss said. Her breath burned with the heat of rot, her mouth pressed right up against his ear. She bit at his ear lobe and he whined before biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, trying to stop the noise.

  
"Who...?" he started to ask, but he knew. Stomach issues, Martin had said. A _bug._ "Leave him--"

  
She flipped him onto his back, releasing his arm and grabbing his thighs in a punishing grip in one smooth motion, folding him in half as she fitted her mouth against his. It was less like a kiss this time. Something dark and bitter and thick filled his mouth and he gagged, sputtering and trying desperately to spit out whatever black fluid she seemed intent on pumping into him; she pulled away, clamping a hand over his mouth and pinching his nose shut. He briefly entertained the thought of drowning, but something about the setting gave him pause; this was no abstract dungeon, this was his room, familiar and intimate and he couldn't shake the thought that it might be real. So he swallowed. It burned like acid all the way down his throat and settled like hot rocks in his stomach.

  
Almost immediately the Hive grew more...aggressive. The pulsing mass between his legs pressed forward, hot and slick but not quite forcing their way inside him. Prentiss rolled her hips against him, moving in time with the Hive, thrusting forward but always pulling away; soon he was soaked with slime and trembling with want, his thighs open, his hips stuttering up to meet hers, his wrist clenched in his teeth.

  
"Your pretty gift is not so eager, Archivist," Prentiss hissed in his ear, and Jon went stiff under her, suddenly remembering Martin with a rush of guilt.

  
"Let--let him go," he said, intending it to sound like a demand. It came out more as a plea, weak and shaking, his voice cracking as Prentiss thrust forward again.

  
"Why should we?" She didn't pull away this time; instead she kept up a steady pressure while the Hive throbbed against him, so close to pressing inside of him that it made his mind buzz like a wasps' nest. "Anything you offered us we could _take."_ She rolled her hips and the Hive finally fucked into him; Jon cried out in what he desperately wished was more disgust than it was. "All your threats would be hollow and empty." She shifted herself back up over his hips, slowly sinking down onto his cock while her worms continued to pulse and writhe inside him. Her cunt was almost unbearably hot, and something squirmed behind the soft walls of it, squeezing and releasing and moving in a slow, teasing circle. Prentiss leaned forward, her dark hair forming a curtain around them. "You have _nothing."_

  
The buzzing in Jon's head had grown louder, but her words rang clearly through it. "Please--" He arched his back. It was so much--too much--too full and too tight and too hot, his mouth scrambling for words his brain was too overwhelmed to supply. "J-Jane, _please--"_

  
"Come to us," Prentiss breathed. Her cunt clenched around him and he whimpered, burying his face in her hair. "Come to us and we'll let him go free."

  
He was so close, grinding up into her while the Hive pressed ever deeper, a heavy, twisting weight that filled him so perfectly--he just needed--

* * *

 

A groan tore itself from his lips as he came, half in a dream and half struggling into consciousness. He lay panting against his mattress, wrung out and trembling, his fingers twisting in the sheets. The sun filtered weakly into the room, mostly hidden by clouds. His book had fallen to the floor at some point in the night.

  
Had it really been a full night? No, surely--surely the dream hadn't truly lasted for hours. Surely he hadn't spent an entire night at her mercy. It must have been a trick of the senses.

  
His phone buzzed next to his head. Another text from Martin. Still sick. Jon hesitated for a long time before replying. It was just a dream. He was fine, just ill, he had to be. "Are you being held hostage by a worm monster" was not an appropriate thing to ask your sick assistant. Jon settled on asking if Martin had seen a doctor.

  
He didn't check his phone again until he was walking into the Archives. Martin's reply read "I Have Not Left My House."

* * *

 

It was on Martin's seventh day out sick that Jon's guilt finally overcame his terror. He resolved to go and...check on him. If everything was truly mundane in nature, he could offer to drive him to a hospital. And if not...

  
He'd be fine. Jon was being ridiculous, they were just dreams, Martin wasn't in danger just because Jon was having some...nightmares.

  
Still, he waited for Tim and Sasha to leave before he set out. Jon wasn't sure what he was expecting, but the fewer people involved, the better. Just in case.

* * *

 

Martin's entire building was dark when Jon pulled up to it. It appeared entirely abandoned; the front door swung open at the lightest touch, the hallways were only dimly lit with emergency lights, and no sound or light spilled from any of the doorways. The faintest smell of damp earth hung in the air.

  
Jon crept towards Martin's flat with all of his senses straining for any sign of movement, fully expecting Prentiss to come screeching around a corner at him at any moment. She didn't, of course; Jon made it to Martin's door with no trouble at all, other than the eeriness that came with walking through a completely still and silent building.

  
Martin's flat gave the impression of being just as empty and abandoned as its neighbors, but when Jon knocked, there was a low groan from the other side. "Go _away,"_ Martin said, his voice sounding strained, on the edge of hysteria.

  
"Martin?"

  
"Jon?!" There was the sound of frantic movement from inside. "Jon, what are you doing here? You have to leave, it isn't--Prentiss, Jane Prentiss, she's--"

  
"It's all right," Jon said. "I know, I--she isn't here now but--"

  
A hand clasped around his wrist. Her sense of dramatic timing seemed to be intact, at least.

  
Jon wrenched himself away from her with a cry, spinning to face her and pressing his back flat against Martin's door. Jane Prentiss in the flesh was much the same as she had been in his dreams--perhaps slightly more decayed, but for the most part, identical. Shorter than he was but not by a great deal, her skin pale and grey in the dim light, her eyes black pits fixated on him with a flat intensity that made him feel like an insect on a pin.

  
"Jon?" Martin called. "Are you--hang on, I'm--"

  
"St-stay where you are!" Jon snapped, turning his head but not breaking eye contact with Prentiss. _Idiot,_ he was an _idiot,_ thinking he could just swan in here and rescue his assistant and everything would be fine.

  
"But--"

  
"Martin, _do not open this door,_ whatever you--"

  
Prentiss surged forward, clamping a hand over Jon's mouth; his skull cracked against the door and he heard Martin let out a cry of alarm at the noise. Jon struggled in her grip, his heart hammering in his chest--this was definitely real, definitely not a dream, he could feel the way the worms moved eagerly beneath the skin of her palm, so agonizingly close to his mouth. She scraped her blackened fingernails up the back of his neck, stroking through his hair.

  
"We didn't think...you would be _joining us,"_ she murmured. It seemed like it was more difficult for her to speak in person, though Jon couldn't be certain. She pulled her hand away, letting Jon suck in a shuddering breath, going very still as she touched him, innocently at first. She traced his face, running her fingertips softly over his lips, the bridge of his nose, his cheekbones. Her thumbs brushed gently along his eyebrows and he closed his eyes, letting her stroke over his eyelids. "We could...gouge them _out,"_ Prentiss whispered, almost to herself. She pressed against his closed eyes, just slightly, just enough to draw a whimper from him.

  
"Please don't." His hands clenched into fists against Martin's door.

  
Her thumbs moved away. When he opened his eyes, Prentiss was regarding him with something like amusement. "No," she said, slowly, contemplatively. "Not yet..." She took a step back from him, her hand lingering on his jaw, and asked, "You...want us to release him?" Jon nodded, once, curtly, and Prentiss laughed. She crooked one long finger at him, beckoning him closer. "Come, then...persuade us."

  
"Jon, don't..." Martin whispered from behind the door. "Just...just run away, I'll be fine..."

  
"Shut up, Martin." Maybe he couldn't make out specifics. Maybe he was just urging him to run without knowing what Prentiss was demanding. Jon hoped so. Prentiss leaned against the far wall, letting her coat fall open. Her body--what was left of it--seemed to glimmer in the dim lighting. It took Jon a moment to recognize that what he was seeing was the writhing of thousands of worms, seething over her and through her, winding in and out of her in a constant ebb and flow. She held a hand out to him.

  
Jon took a deep breath and accepted it, letting himself be pulled forward. The worms crawled over him, wound between his fingers, but didn't bite, as far as he could tell. Just lingered on his skin as if they simply enjoyed the contact. She urged him to his knees and he went, his breath coming quicker, shakier; Prentiss smoothed a hand down his hair and he nearly broke into hysterical giggles at how gentle she was.

  
His fingers slid into her with little resistance; the things squirming inside her coiled around him. They seemed so eager to touch him, be near the unblemished skin of his hand, and he wanted to pull away but the thought of the Hive taking what it wanted from Martin instead held him in place. Her hand tightened in his hair and tugged him towards her, and Jon resisted for just a moment before allowing it.

  
She tasted of old rainwater and something bitter, and the way she rolled her hips against him was like nothing human. He let his jaw go lax and tried not to think about what he was putting in his mouth. Fortunately she didn't seem too bothered with finesse or lack thereof; she adjusted the angle of his neck as she pleased, and Jon had to shift the rest of his body to accommodate her, to keep his spine from twisting at strange and uncomfortable angles. He pulled his fingers from her to grasp at her thighs; they were stained black with something viscous that shone like oil under the emergency lights.

  
"Could...take you now..." Prentiss breathed, and it was hard to tell if her voice was broken from the worms or from the way Jon ran his tongue in slow circles over her clit. "Have you... _change_ you..." Her hand tightened in his hair, and Jon let out a choked noise of pain; that seemed to send her over the edge, her body going rigid and an echoing moan bubbling up in her throat. Gushing heat filled his mouth and Jon fell away from her, sputtering and gagging and watching as black ooze splattered onto the hand he held to his lips.

  
Prentiss panted against the wall, laughing in the kind of vague, distracted way that would have been endearing on a partner less _rotted._ "Keep him," Prentiss said, breathless cruelty making her voice a lilting singsong. "We have had our... _fun."_

  
Jon blinked, and she was gone, the lights overhead flickering on. He found himself suddenly surrounded by the sounds of a living apartment building, rather than the empty tomb he'd been in before. And here he was, sprawled in the middle of a hallway with black slime dripping from his mouth. Behind him, a door was flung open, and before he could panic over being discovered, Martin was hauling him up and into his apartment, babbling panicked reassurances at him.

  
Jon was ushered into a kitchen chair; Martin knelt before him, tugging his hand away from his face, apparently unconcerned with whatever fluids he was coming in contact with as he checked him for worms. "...shouldn't have _done that,"_ Martin was saying, his voice breathy and anxious and his words coming too fast. "God, Jon, what were you thinking, she could have--you could have been--not for me, I'm not--I would have been--"

  
"Martin," Jon said, more calmly than he felt. Martin stopped talking, though he kept running his fingers over Jon's hand like he was searching for bites. His eyes were wide and watery as he looked up at him. Jon considered his options for a moment, feeling detached in an odd, floaty sort of way, his mind buzzing and distant. "May I use your bathroom?"

  
Martin nodded, led him to a door on the other side of the kitchen, started to say something about letting Jon use his shower if he wanted, then cut himself off with a startled yelp as Jon collapsed in front of his toilet to vomit.

  
When his stomach was emptied, Jon found that the floatiness had vanished. He shook violently on the tile, tears clinging to his lashes, taking in heaving gulps of air. He was faintly worried he was going to hyperventilate. He felt Martin place a hesitant hand on his back, felt him ease a glass of water into his hand. "Are...are you okay?" Martin asked, as Jon rinsed his mouth. He sounded as miserable as Jon felt.

  
"Fine." (Oh, God, he sounded awful. It was barely worth lying about if his voice was going to sound like _that.)_

  
Martin helped him to his feet, watched him scrub his hands raw in the sink. "I--I'm sorry, I--"

  
"Don't," Jon said. "Don't apologize." He wanted to say more, something reassuring, maybe, but everything that came to mind was so trite and empty that he kept silent instead. Then: "Did you dream of her?"

  
Martin startled. "Did I--what?"

  
"Did you have dreams," Jon said. "About her. While she was...here. Or before."

  
Martin shifted anxiously. He was an awful liar; he hadn't even said anything yet and Jon could sense the incoming change of topic, the awkwardly dodged question. "Do you want something to eat?" Martin asked. "To help settle your stomach. I don't have much, but I'm sure I can find something..."

  
Jon followed him into the kitchen, where he rummaged through mostly-empty cabinets and babbled about not having bread for toast. "Martin, _tell me."_

  
Martin flinched, staring at a can of peaches, rolling it between his palms. "Is it...is it really important?" he asked.

  
"I need to know."

  
"I...yes. Okay? Yes, I had dreams about her. I don't know what you're getting out of that--"

  
"What about?" Martin gave him a pained look, and Jon revised his question: "I mean...did she speak to you?"

  
"She...mentioned you. Sort of."

  
"Sort of?"

  
"Well she kept saying the Archivist, so I assume she meant you, it's not like I know many archivists." Martin thunked the can onto the counter with a little more force than seemed necessary. "She said--she said she wanted to know...how much of a coward you were." Martin didn't meet his eyes as he said this. "And she'd tell me--God, Jon, she said awful things. About what she would to do. To me. To you. And she mentioned the others--Tim and Sasha and even Elias at one point, and I...I don't know. I tried not to sleep, much."

  
Martin's eyes had grown damp again, and Jon looked away as he scrubbed at them. "Pack some things," Jon said abruptly.

  
"Uh...what? Why?"

  
"I think you should stay at the Archives for a while." Jon could see Martin staring at him out of the corner of his eye and made no move to catch his gaze. Instead he stared resolutely at a spot beneath the kitchen table. "There's a room I've been using when I work late. It's well-sealed, well-locked, more security...and...I never dream, there. I think it would be best for you to stay there, until this is...sorted."

  
"What...you don't..." Martin cast about for the proper words, then sighed. "You think it isn't over? That she'll be back? Even after--"

  
"Yes." Jon finally met Martin's gaze. "But I don't think you need to be a part of it. And I think this is the best way to keep you away from her." Martin opened his mouth to speak, to protest, but Jon cut him off. "Put some things together, Martin. I'll take care of it."

  
"But--why?" Martin asked. "I mean--not that I don't appreciate it, it's just--I mean...why...why you?"

  
Jon was silent. There were answers to that question, yes, but none he felt particularly inclined to share. Not now. Not with Martin. Possibly not ever with anyone. "Just get your things." 


End file.
